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The only difference between the two is that Santa can be verified false. Just travel to the North Pole and you will see he does not live there, hang out in a house with children and you will see the parents come down and lay out the presents, etc.
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The Bible-based Christian God can be verified false just as easily -- just notice that the design of the world specified in the Bible isn't true. It took the Churches 100s of years to make up new mythos that works around this problem.
I think in many ways Religions generate similar effects in adults that Santa does in children.
"Evil" acts by children tend to be those where they think they can hide from the results of their acts, be it because the penalty is remote or because they think they can hide it from the source of punishment (parents).
Children who believe in Santa now have a source of punishment they can't hide from. And the punishment, while remote, is large and very important -- Christmas presents.
It encourages Children to think of their acts in the extremely long term and how their acts impact everyone else, by using Santa to mirror the results of their acts back onto their shoulders.
Major world religions encourage you to treat harm to others like harm to yourself, at least within the 'in' group of co-believers. The Bible even has a specific rule against charging interest in it -- treat harm and benefit tomorrow the same as harm and benefit today, ie think long term.
Now, the real theology of religions doesn't line up as well with Santa as does the naive theology of the masses of believers. While the religion may talk about 'salvation through faith' or 'reality is an illusion', it is the behaviour of the masses of practitioners, and how they view their religion, that parallels the Santa myth.
Bah, my apologies -- this isn't as well written as I'd like.